Nexus investor calls for Cottee’s return

Major
Nexus Energy
shareholder M&G Investment has called for an extraordinary general meeting to reinstall ousted managing director Richard Cottee on the proviso that three of the company’s current directors stand down.

Mr Cottee said M&G, which holds a 15 per cent stake in Nexus, spoke with its custodian on Wednesday night, UK time, to requisition an EGM which would return Mr Cottee to the role he left in September and appoint two new executive directors who have not previously worked at the oil and gas producer.

“M&G have informed me in writing they have begun the process of requisitioning an EGM," Mr Cottee told the Weekend AFR on Friday. “It is on the basis I would be one of the nominees of the directors."

Mr Cottee added he had received written backing from institutional investors representing 32 per cent of the Nexus shareholder base approving his return to the company. “That has all come in the last 24 hours without me doing anything."

The revelation comes after Mr Cottee launched legal action in the Victorian Supreme Court over his September 21 dismissal from the oil and gas producer, saying clauses attached to his contract forbidding him from seeking a new job are “void and unenforceable".

A Nexus spokesman relayed a comment from Mr Fowler that the company would “strenuously and vigorously" defend the lawsuit.

Mr Cottee, who resigned on September 21, has yet to reveal the precise reasons for quitting his role at Nexus, but says it related to the board expecting too much from a farm-out deal he was trying to negotiate to finance the company’s development of its Crux assets in the Browse Basin.

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The company’s share price rallied by 9 per cent on Friday to close at 18¢. Mr Cottee made his name turning Queensland Gas Co from a $20 million coal seam gas junior to a $5.7 billion player by the time BG bought it in a friendly deal in 2008. He is credited with luring investors to Nexus since joining in April last year, thanks to his strong deal-making track record.